My own blog, reviewing the books I have recently read, either purchased or kindly sent to me to review. Living in Worcester, UK with my husband and two children. All books I have received are marked as such in the blog. I am NOT Sarah Broadhurst who works for The Bookseller and Lovereading. My other review blog is http://sarah-sarahreviews.blogspot.com/

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Saturday, 3 May 2014

Blog Tour - Undead Pets by Sam Hay

Today I am pleased to welcome Sam Hay, the author of Undead Pets, to my blog, where she tells my readers about her own pets and if any of them have shaped any of the characters in her books.

Sam
Hay is the author of the Undead Pets
series, published by Stripes. The latest book in the series - Hour of the Doomed Dog is out now.

Sam
grew up in Scotland
and worked as a journalist for ten years before becoming a children’s author. She’s
written more than 20 books and lives in Wales in a small house with a big
garden full of scraggy plants and wild pets!

Sam Hay’s (NOT) Undead
Pets

I
love pets. There. I’ve said it. When other grown-ups roll their eyes and groan
about how much work it is looking after kids - let alone their pets, I nod
along, and sympathise but secretly I want to shout ‘PETS ARE GREAT!’ (And kids,
too, of course!)

That’s
part of the reason why it’s been such fun to write the Undead Pets series. For the past two years my head has been full of
pets. I’ve even become a bit of a pet-shop stalker, hanging out at the guinea
pig pens, the hamster houses and the banks of fish tanks, lining the walls of our
local pet store.

When
I was a kid I was a lot like Joe in Undead
Pets. More than anything I wanted a dog. I watched so many episodes of the Littlest Hobo that I can still hum the
theme tune now. (Younger readers: that show was on TV a long time ago!) I did
my best to convince my mum I could be a responsible dog owner. I brought home several
stray dogs to show her how great I’d be at looking after them. Except they
weren’t stray. Mum fed them. I hugged them. Then we returned them to their
owners. Next I collected caterpillars. Then ladybirds. And once I even rescued
a fledgling bird. It died. But I didn’t stop my quest for a pet. Then an
amazing thing happened.

It
was Christmas 1980. I was 8. And my (fairy) godmother turned up with an
unexpected small furry gift for me. A rabbit! Fluffy. She was amazing... mostly
at chewing through phone cables, shedding fur and pooping in unexpected places.
She was even on telly once as part of a local animal charity campaign. She was
WAY cuter than Billy the budgie or Twitchy-Blob bunny, my friends’ pets. I know
this because Fluffy got more screen time than either of them! HA!

I
didn’t know it then but Fluffy would turn out to be the inspiration for Book 5
in the Undead Pets series - Rise of
the Zombie Rabbit. The character got her name, her moulting fur, even her poop!

But
she wasn’t alone. Pickle - the cat in the second book in the series - Revenge of the Phantom Furball - is a
lot like Martin - our current moggy. He’s slightly dim, rather whingy and a
real scaredy-cat, just like Pickle.

As
for Dexter - the Howling Hound from Book 3, he’s definitely based on Dylan, my
husband’s shaggy dog, who used to take himself off for walks and call for his
pals, pawing at their front doors until their owners let them out!

Everyone
who wants to write should own a pet. For starters, you’ll live longer. Apparently
they make you less stressed. Plus they’re great for procrastinating - who
wouldn’t prefer cuddling a kitten to getting down to those brain-twisting
re-writes. They also provide an endless stream of stories. My family still
talks about Honey, the cat who ate half the Christmas turkey. (Mum made us eat
the other half!) Bulls-eye, my big brother’s microscopic white mouse who got so
itchy the vet made him titchy paw casts to stop him scratching. And Rover my
granny’s sweet-looking, but utterly evil ginger cat, who used to back me into a
corner until I squealed to be rescued.

And
pets continue to invade our family. We’ve currently two rabbits: Tod and Fluffy
Two. They love humans but hate each other. Martin the cat. He thinks he’s a
ninja hunter. But never catches anything. And Goldie & Silver - two
enormous goldfish that look like they might eat us!

Pets.
Undead or otherwise. Life is so much more interesting with them in it.

Five Famous Pets

Humphrey
the hamster

Og
the Frog

Toto
from the Wizard of Oz

Whiffer
from Dirtie Bertie

Scooby-Doo!

Thank you to Sam Hay - I have read a number of the Undead Pets series and, along with my son, enjoyed the series. I was disappointed to find out that The Hour of the Doomed Dog was to be the last in the series, however Sam has written a fantastic last book of the series.

Thank you to Sam and to Stripes Publishing for sending me the book to review and to invite me to be part of the blog tour to celebrate Hour of the Doomed Dog being published.